


K'un-Lun

by Prochytes



Category: Cabin Pressure, Iron Fist (TV)
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 05:13:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17419721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prochytes/pseuds/Prochytes
Summary: Danny Rand has a mission, more money than God, and (temporarily) no plane. Carolyn Knapp-Shappey has a plane. A match made in heaven, if by “heaven” one means “perilously high up in the sky”.





	K'un-Lun

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for _Iron Fist_ S1 (the fic takes place between the end of S1 and _The Defenders_ ); small spoilers for _Cabin Pressure_ to "Helsinki".

Martin opposed the engagement from the beginning, as he was later not remiss in pointing out.

“I really don’t think that this would be a good idea, Carolyn,” he said. “The flight-plan commits us to bouncing between half-a-dozen air-fields across practically the whole of Asia for several weeks. Couldn’t the client just use one of his corporate jets to do that, instead?”

“Do try to pay attention at the briefing, Martin.” Carolyn leaned forward, the better to hammer home her stare. “All of his company’s aircraft are temporarily grounded because of corporate restructuring. One won’t be available until the client reaches Phnom Penh.”

“Nevertheless…”

“Let me break this down for you,” said Carolyn sweetly, “into appropriately comestible chunks. Billionaire Danny Rand wants to be picked up from Tibet for a, and I quote, ‘fact-finding tour’ of Asia. Now, you, Douglas, and I may very well feel that billionaire Danny Rand is transparently as well-fitted to investigative tourism as a halibut would be to competitive bowls, and that this conspicuous void of talent is unlikely adequately to be filled by the addition to billionaire Danny Rand’s party of a small businesswoman he met in New York a couple of months ago. We might therefore be tempted to conclude that billionaire Danny Rand’s behaviour is, in this respect, a tad eccentric. Yet it must be allowed that a wholesome dash of eccentricity is not always alien to the souls of great and very, very rich men. Do I make myself clear?”

“Crystalline,” said Douglas, and turned on the landing lights.

***

“I’m still convinced that there’s something odd about all this,” said Martin. 

“How odd would that be?” said Douglas. “A little bit odd, like the fact of the old girl’s continuing approximate airworthiness? Or really, confoundedly odd, like that drunk in the pilots’ bar at LXA who swore blind that a few months back the Himalayas grew and then moulted an extra mountain?”

Martin decided to rise above this contribution. “You’ve seen how they’ve been behaving during the flights. He’s obviously terrified of flying; she spends most of her time pretending not to keep an eye on him and gnawing her lip. Neither has so much as cracked open a laptop. The last time I went through, he seemed to have gone into some kind of trance.”

“He’s focussing his _chi_.” Arthur had bustled in. “I asked him, when I took the last dessert order. Didn’t sound at all sensible to me. Wouldn’t focussing just make it all fondue-like and squirty?”

“What?” said Douglas. 

“And it’s not as though there’s ever much of it left over, by the time Mum’s had first dibs on the Camembert, and you and Martin have argued over the Brie.”

“Ah. Revelation dawns. _Chi_ , Arthur, is an elusive concept, which might, more or less, be analogized to the notion of a ‘life-force’. It is not – and here, I think, is where you were going astray – an abbreviation for ‘cheese’.”

“Really?” Arthur’s brow wrinkled. “I thought that _chi_ was just like all those other handy pilot abbreviations. ‘Plane’ for ‘aeroplane’, ‘tea’ for ‘TNT’… that sort of thing.”

“Be that as it may,” said Martin, “it doesn’t tell us anything useful.”

“It tells us,” said Douglas, “that Arthur isn’t serving hot drinks until further notice.”

***

“Any fresh news to report from the dessert?” Douglas asked Arthur, a little later. “Did you and Mr. Rand bond over the Battenberg?”

“Oh yes,” Arthur replied, in confidential tones. “This isn’t really a fact-finding mission. It’s all to do with Mr. Rand’s other job.”

“Other job?”

“Hang on a moment; I wrote this down.” Arthur pulled out, and then perused, a crumpled napkin. “Mr. Rand’s other job is being The Immortal Iron Fist, protector of K’un-Lun from all oppression and sworn enemy of The Hand, honouring the sacrifice of Shou-Lao the Undrying. Although I can’t quite read my writing for that last bit.”

“I see. And Shou-Lao the ever-sodden is…?”

“A dragon. Mr. Rand was surprised that I took that part so well. He said that most people usually made more of a fuss.”

“Mr. Rand was clearly innocent of the fact, Arthur, that you have very little in common with ‘most people’.”

“Also, a ninja death-cult is trying to kill him.”

“What self-respecting ninja death–cult would do otherwise?”

“I should probably go back and sort out Ms. Wing’s whiskey order. She seemed to find the conversation between me and Mr. Rand rather stressful.” 

“You probably should.”

“So, Danny Rand isn’t just a billionaire,” said Martin, once the door closed behind Arthur, “he’s a lunatic.”

Douglas shrugged. “If lunacy were a deal-breaker, MJN Air would lose a little over half its trade. Remember the bassoonist and the portentous armrests?” 

“Still, you should go and have a word with his sane companion, once an opportunity presents itself.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

***

“Good afternoon, Ms. Wing.” 

“Hi, First Officer Richardson.” 

“Do call me ‘Douglas’. I trust that the flight is meeting with your approval?”

“Yeah – it’s been great. Thank you so much. I’m sure Danny will agree, once he’s back from the bathroom.”

“Excellent. May I take advantage of Mr. Rand’s temporary absence to express, on behalf of all of us here at MJN Air, our gratitude for the restraining influence which you so obviously exert over ohmyword.”

“Ah. I see you’ve noticed my nail-file. Sorry for having it out on the table. But I wasn’t expecting anyone back from the flight deck for a while. It needed cleaning.”

“Yes. So I can see. Your nail-file looks exceedingly sharp.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And is also, I can’t help noticing, two feet long.”

“Stubborn cuticles are a bitch.”

“In fact,” said Douglas, choosing his words carefully, “to the uneducated eye, Ms. Wing, your nail-file might easily be mistaken for a sword. Don’t you find that that presents a problem?”

“Not really.”

“If I may be so bold as to ask: why not?”

A sigh. “Because, Douglas, right now I’m a woman trying to hold it together for two, running on a little Bourbon and a lot of fumes, who has a very long, very sharp,” the tip tapped lightly against the table, “nail-file.”

Douglas considered his options. “That you do.”

***

“We could all rush the two of them together.”

“Yes, Martin. That would definitely work. Arthur once lost a fight with a packet of Jammie Dodgers, and I have seen you being beaten up in this very cockpit by a fourteen year-old. I hadn’t thought that I’d ever live to see _bona fide_ writhing in agony, and certainly not upon the flight deck.”

“We need to do something. How exactly are we supposed to explain to any legal authorities, anywhere, that we seem to have been enabling a pair of psychopaths in their Murder Tour of Asia, sponsored by a wet imaginary dragon?” 

“It’s a poser; I’ll grant you that.”

“She has a _sword_ , Douglas.” 

“Technically, I think that’s a katana.”

“Any spot inspection would send us all to prison for a very, very long time. And do you want to be the one who tells her she can’t be carrying it? Knowing its proper name won’t be much of a consolation when you can admire it jutting out from you on both sides.”

“Well, let’s accentuate the positive. At least we managed to defuse the tea cistern before detonation.”

Martin was undeterred. “She isn’t getting that sword through customs, Douglas.”

Douglas smoothed his uniform. “Leave it to me.”

***

“I think that we must grudgingly concede,” said Douglas, once it was all over, “that a ninja death-cult was, in fact, trying to kill Mr. Rand. Unless nine very bad-tempered martial artists all decided to hold a black pyjama party on GERTI simultaneously.”

Martin scowled.

“Also, credit where it’s due,” Douglas continued, “Mr. Rand was delighted to cover the cost of deep-cleaning the cabin carpets, as well the more… substantial repairs. And that was a _massive_ set of tips. We didn’t even have to pretend to care about Welsh rugby.”

“Yes,” said Martin, rubbing at the graze on his forehead. “All we had to do was not _die_ while Mr. Rand tried to beat up nine people at once.”

“The fight was looking pretty dicey for a moment,” said Arthur. “I think that it could have gone either way, until Ms. Wing joined in.”

Carolyn nodded. “Thank goodness Douglas arranged for her to be able to go on carrying her Emotional Support Katana.”

“Anyway,” said Martin. “Mr. Rand and Ms. Wing are now Phnom Penh’s problem, and not ours. We can plot a course back to Fitton, just as soon as the engineers are finished with the bulkhead.” 

“Quite,” said Carolyn. “I’m still not clear on how Mr. Rand was able to punch a ninja _through_ the toilet.”

“He’s The Immortal Iron Fist,” Arthur said, with authority. “There’s not much he can’t do when he focusses his Wensleydale.”

FINIS


End file.
